Senate Soccer: If Americans loved soccer, then Sheldon Killpack would still be a senator. Witness the justification given in court today for pulling over Killpack after his night of carousing with drunk metal heads:

Prosecutor Thomas Lopresto argued that Killpack’s tire on his Toyota Tundra pickup hit the center line on his lane three times and that was grounds for the trooper to make the stop. State law, Lopresto argued, requires a driver to stay “entirely within a single lane” to the extent possible.

The key phrase: "hit the center line." That's football rules, where touching the line is out-of-bounds. In soccer, the ball has to cross the line to be out-of-bounds. Thus, if Utah rules were based on soccer, then Killpack would not have been stopped. Instead, he is off to a jury trial.

Mining Bryce: Remember that little uproar about Gov. Gary Herbert receiving a contribution from a mining company seeking an expedited review of its proposal to strip mine in southern Utah? Yeah ... neither did I, until I read this article at NewWest.com. Apparently, said mine is within spitting distance (at least, in relative terms for the Western U.S.) of Bryce Canyon, and plans are moving forward. The hitch, however, will be the dozens of trucks that will rumble through various towns, such as Panguitch. A few years ago, I did a story about a similar situation in Emery County, and trust me, that many trucks can do serious damage to the roads and create an unnerving amount of noise for towns normally considered "idyllic."

Sober Joe: I had about four other great things I was going to highlight today, and then Joe Pyrah had to basically post them. They include a nice Robert Kirby ditty about Burning Man, the almost-certain showdown between Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Sen. Orrin Hatch and the CNN story about Mike Lee. However, I'm not linking to his blog because he didn't link to my post about Joel Campbell and Lee Davidson leaving the D-News (ditto for Tommy at the Trib, who linked to everyone except me). And yes, I am that petty. It's part of my alternative vibe.

Tired Obama: I swear I am going to read this entire Vanity Fair story about a day in the life of Barack Obama. However, just the phrase ""at the hour of dawn" that opens the piece made me tired. I'm blaming my increasingly bad head cold.

Minimalist Josh: Last night, I listened to a football game (Go Boise!) and a baseball game (Go Dodgers -- but only because I'm a Giants fan). That's right, listened to the radio broadcasts ... streaming on my computer. It's a weird low-fi/high-tech mash-up that I quite enjoy. I did so because we don't have cable, part of a semi-forced but quite enjoyable minimalist lifestyle we're choosing. Now, I tend to wrinkle my nose at parenting blogs, but ... well, here's a nice post about minimalist child rearing.

Sexy Niki: People continue to claim they had random sex with South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Niki Haley. All reports are unproven, although one did reportedly happen in Salt Lake City. This week, the Charleston City Paper poked (tee-hee) at the allegations. The best part is at the very end, where they reprint a memo from the news director of the paper to the bloggers telling them how to handle questions about whether they have had encounters with Haley, since all of the reports involve bloggers. The best line: "If you couldn't care less about Haley -- and you can prove the affair -- hang up and give me a call. We'll run a cover story next week proclaiming, 'City Paper hit that!'" I think I just found a new mentor.

Six Pack on the Dashboard is a rundown of the things I find most interesting and is published every weekday. Ideally, it will be in the morning. But not always.